AN: I'm back! Changing Channels is officially on! Okay, so last time we got through act one, so this is gonna go through act two along with the commercial break and act three. The next chapter will be act four. Get ready for Japanese hilarity!

Thanks to all who Followed, Faved, and Reviewed!

"Japanese"

OOOOOOOOOO

Tony had no idea what the actual fuck was going on.

One second, he and the others had decided to play along with Loki's crazy scheme. The next, he and Clint are on some crazy stage with some Japanese guy and two Japanese chicks in front of a Japanese audience. He couldn't understand what anyone was saying. He should have listened to Pepper when she told him he should learn this language.

"Let's play Nutcracker!"

The man who had just spoken, presumably the host of whatever the fuck kind of show this was, turned to Tony.

"Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto! Tony Stark!"

It was so confusing.

The guy started speaking again, seeming to ask him a question.

"What is the name of the helpful man who you allowed to die in Afghanistan? Count down!"

A screen he hadn't noticed before started counting down from 20.

"What? Uh, what am I supposed to say?"

Clint frowned.

"You think I know?"

"Uh, listen, host guy. I don't understand Japanese."

"What is the name of the helpful man who you allowed to die in Afghanistan?"

"I still can't speak Japanese."

The clock hit zero with a buzz.

"The answer is… Yinsen! I'm sorry, Tony Stark."

"Sorry? For what?"

Suddenly, a pole he hadn't even noticed came up and hit him in the crotch.

Son of a bitch!

The Host started yelling again.

"Nutcracker!"

The scene started playing on the screen from several different angles.

"Nutcracker!"

Clint looked over to him.

"Tony?"

Tony couldn't answer him. The host went over to one of the women, who holds up a bag of chips and starts talking in Japanese.

"Have we discussed these nutritious Shrimp Chips? Lots of nutrition, tastes great… and the more one eats, the slimmer they get, just like you. Please buy them."

The host moves back over to the center of the stage.

"Clint Barton! Would you be Hawkeye if your parents had lived? Countdown!"

The clock started again.

"Shit! What do I do?"

Tony frowned.

"What?"

"I don't want to get hit in the balls today, Tony!"

"Well, I- Wait a second."

"What, Stark!"

"Loki said that we had to 'play the part'. This is what he meant. You have to play the part of the Japanese game show contestant."

"Well, what do I do?"

"Answer the question."

"In Japanese?"

"Yeah!"

"I don't know Japanese!"

"Try!"

"Goddammit!"

From a balcony at the back of the studio, Gabriel suddenly laughed. The rest of the Avengers (Who weren't on stage or Steve) looked at him oddly. He simply smirked.

"You'll get it eventually."

Clint slammed his hand down on the button.

"The answer is… yes?"

Clint closed his eyes, bracing himself for impact.

"Clint Barton, the Nutcracker Champion!"

Tony turned to him.

"How did you do that?"

Clint shook his head.

"I don't know."

Tony took a deep breath.

"So that's it. We play whatever role we've been cast as, and try to figure out what Loki really is in the meantime. Shouldn't be too hard."

Clint smirked.

"You mean besides the occasional hit to the balls?"

Tony just glared.

OOOOOOOOOO

There is a redheaded woman practicing yoga. She turns to the camera, and is revealed to be the one and only Natasha Romanov.

"I've got genital herpes."

Steve sits on a couch. He looks slightly uncomfortable.

"I've… I've got genital herpes."

Tony, Clint, and Bruce are playing basketball on a court. Tony sighs.

"Seriously?"

Clint claps him on the shoulder.

"You're the one who said to play our parts."

Tony frowned.

"But what if this is actually on T.V? I don't care about getting kicked in the balls, but if I say this, no woman will ever sleep with me again!"

Bruce glared at him.

"Tony, I think we have bigger problems than that! Just say the damn line!"

Tony gulped. Brucie was getting pissed. and nobody likes Brucie when he's pissed. He sighed.

"I've got genital herpes."

Natasha is in another yoga pose, mumbling 'took you long enough' under her breath.

"I try to be responsible."

Steve looks at a random woman.

"Did I try."

Tony still looks a little pissed, but seems to have accepted his fate.

"But now I take twice-daily Herpexia to reduce my chances of passing it on. So yes ladies. You can still sleep with me."

Natasha rolls her eyes and turns to the camera.

"Ask your doctor about using Herpexia."

Steve is slow dancing with the random woman, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Natasha does a few more yoga poses. Clint's voice comes over the scene.

"Patients should always consult with a physician before using Herpexia. Possible side effects include headache, diarrhea, permanent erectile disfunction, thoughts of suicide, and nausea."

Back to you Tony.

"I'm doing all I can to lessen the spread of, ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this, genital herpes. And that's a good thing."

The Herpexia logo appears over the scene.

OOOOOOOOOO

Steve's voice plays over a scene of Stark tower.

"We now return to The Trickster."

In the living room, Tony stands by the breakfast bar.

"Son of a bitch!"

The laugh track plays.

Steve glares at Tony from his place across from him at the breakfast bar.

"Tony!"

The laugh track plays again.

Steve walks over to the woman in a bikini on the couch.

"Uh, I'm really, really, very sorry ma'am, but uh, we've got work to do."

Steve helps the woman up and escorts her to the door, with her protesting all the way.

"But we did do work! In depth."

Cue the laughter. Tony waves at her as she leaves. Steve just shuts the door and shakes his head. Tony frowned.

"How long do we have to keep doing this?"

Steve sighed.

"I don't know."

He wasn't lying. He hadn't seen any clues, besides Gabriel laughing at the 'Goddammit; thing, and he knew exactly what to look for… wait a second. There was a bible on a table in the next room. Subtle, but definitely intentional. Good one.

Suddenly, the door opened with a bang, and Loki stepped in, much to the crowd's enjoyment. The trickster smiled.

"Hello!"

More cheers and clapping.

"Thank you, thank you, ladies."

Tony frowns.

"I'm done with the monkey dance, Reindeer Games. Where are these supposed clues?"

Loki grinned.

"Well, there was the initial conversation. Then, there was one during Nutcracker that you missed because you were onstage. I couldn't really do anything during the commercial, since you were all there. But there is one in this room. You just have to look for it."

"But we don't know what were looking for!"

Loki smirked.

"To quote The Art of War, 'In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.' This is chaos. And I'm giving you the opportunity in the midst of it. All you have to do is look."

He snapped his fingers, and the world went black again.

OOOOOOOOOO

A man lies on the ground with a stomach wound. Around his neck is a cross necklace. Crime scene markers surround him, taking pictures. Clint and Natasha stand outside the crime scene tape, wearing identical suits and sunglasses. Clint groaned.

"Oh. come on."

An Officer invites them behind the tape and they inspect the body. Natasha frowns at the necklace. Clint looked up at her.

"What?"

"No, no, it's insane."

"What's insane?"

She sighed.

"Remember the conversation we had with Loki before he popped us in TV land?"

"What about it?"

"He said that he wasn't Aesir or Jotun, he was something else. He said that something was going down, of the 'Extinction of the human race' caliber. He said that someone had set one of his biological older brothers free, and that that older brother was the one causing this. He also said that there are things he knows about this brother that no one except he and his father would know, but his father hasn't spoken to anyone except a man named Joshua in millenia. Thor is only a little over a thousand years old. For him to know that, he would either have had to hear it from someone else or have lived long enough to know personally. If were going with the second option, he'd be older than Thor by far. And that's only from the first conversation. You weren't here for this, but when you said 'goddammit' on the Nutcracker stage, he burst out laughing. In the room behind Tony in the sitcom thing, there was what looked like a bible on a table. And now this corpse has a cross on his necklace."

Clint frowned.

"You can't seriously be suggesting…"

"The Christian Apocalypse is supposed to start when Lucifer is let out of his cage. All Angels are related to each other. Someone setting Loki's older brother free sounds like it could be the beginning of the end."

"No. There is no possible way that Loki is an Angel. Angels are the good guys, remember? Loki definitely isn't a good guy."

"Isn't he?"

"What do you mean?"

"Loki said that we're in a pocket dimension. If he's telling the truth, that means that he has the power to not only create, but control and manipulate a pocket dimension. If he could do that, then why didn't he just put us in a pocket dimension when he invaded New York? It clearly doesn't take much effort on his part, he hasn't been showing any strain this whole time we've been here. Why did he just let us roam around?"

Clint paused.

"Even so, It's not that uncommon for bibles to be on tables and for people to wear cross necklaces. It could just be a coincidence. Let's wait a little bit to be sure, okay?'

She nodded.

Clint turned to the officer.

"Okay, what do we got?"

OOOOOOOOOO

Gabriel smirked from the tree line. He didn't expect them to figure it out so quickly, but hey, She was Natasha Romanov, after all. Figuring stuff like this out was her job. He looked back to his project. He wrote 'pour it in a circle with room enough to stand in. Once the Angel is inside, light it up.' on a piece of paper. He carved two small places out in the pages of a book. He put a bottle of Holy Oil in one, and tucked the paper next to it. He put a match book in the other hole. Then, he closed the book. He teleported to the next set, a library, and set the copy of The Art of War on top of a bookshelf, the name clearly displayed on the spine. The youngest Archangel smirked.

Showtime.

OOOOOOOOOO

AN: Holy Changing Channels, Batman! I know there's no library in the actual episode, but I'm gonna have to go on a different path from here. They can't kill him and go back to their lives. So, I'm gonna have them go to a couple more sets before it's over.

The reason why I'm not showing other characters like I usually do, is because the pocket dimension is outside of time. I can't line anything up with the timeline, because there is no timeline to follow. The stuff from the last chapter was articulating what's happening while they're in there. When they catch Gabriel, he's gonna dissolve the dimension like he did in the canon, and by the time they're done talking, everything will be caught up and we can start looking at the other characters again.

When some Avengers are in scenes, the others are hanging with Loki and watching. They were in the balcony in Nutcracker, the audience in the sitcom, and they're some of the extras in the cop scene. They were all in the commercial, so they weren't watching that one.

Gabriel Muse turns reviews into candy! Help him keep his supply plentiful by telling me what you think!

Until next time!